


buttercups and boomboxes

by mutemelody



Series: disharmonious inspiration [12]
Category: Naruto
Genre: But don't tell anyone shhh, Comfort No Hurt, Flowers, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gift Fic, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, It's really just nice and soft, Kakashi and Tenzo get the break they deserve, M/M, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Sloaners Floral Fashion 2020, Soft Hatake Kakashi, Team as Family, Vacation, disguises, literally just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23812975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutemelody/pseuds/mutemelody
Summary: “Senpai.Look at me.”He slumps, staring down at the ground beneath them. He’s really not avoiding eye contact. “Why do you always assume the worst of me?”He can’t see Tenzō’s face, but he can picture it in his head. He’s spent enough time around his kouhai to justknow.He sighs and forces himself to look at Tenzō. “Tsunade-samamighthave been the one to suggest this vacation. She may be under the impression that I need to...take some time off. With you. For some reason.”
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Sai, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Yamato | Tenzou, Haruno Sakura & Sai & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou, Hatake Kakashi/Yamato | Tenzou
Series: disharmonious inspiration [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1141571
Comments: 6
Kudos: 178





	buttercups and boomboxes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keepyourpantsongohan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepyourpantsongohan/gifts).



> For the wonderful Gohan!!! I hope you enjoy!!! I'm sorry if it's not exactly what you wanted ahhh I hope you like it

_ "The buttercup symbolizes childishness, humility, and neatness.” _

* * *

“Senpai,” Tenzō says, and Kakashi distantly wonders how long his voice has had that slightly exasperated tone to it, along with something else he can’t quite identify. He likes to think it’s fondness. “I really don’t think-

“It’s only for a week,” Kakashi insists, “It’ll be perfect.”

“The war only ended a month ago. You’re going to be  _ Hokage  _ by the end of this month.” 

“Which is two weeks away!” Kakashi says, a large smile on his face. “So it works out perfectly. And since the war only ended a month ago, the nations are as at peace as they’ll ever be. It’s the ideal time to go on a vacation.”

“Hokage-sama would kill us if we left her now, with everything happening. There’s still so much to do-” The small part of Kakashi’s visible face must give him away, because Tenzō immediately stops walking and stares at him with that  _ look.  _ “What did you do, Kakashi-senpai?”

“Me?” Kakashi says, innocence dripping from his voice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Tenzō continues to look at him in that same manner.

_ “Well,”  _ Kakashi starts off, and is not purposefully avoiding Tenzō’s eyes. Really. He just thinks the plank fence next to him is super interesting. Is that a caterpillar?

_ “Senpai.  _ Look at me.”

He slumps, staring down at the ground beneath them. He’s really not avoiding eye contact. He just thinks he sees another caterpillar, and finds it highly interesting. “Why do you always assume the worst of me?”

He can’t see Tenzō’s face, but he can picture it in his head. He’s spent enough time around his kouhai to just  _ know. _

He sighs and forces himself to look at Tenzō. “Tsunade-sama  _ might  _ have been the one to suggest this vacation. She may be under the impression that I need to...take some time off. With you. For some reason.”

It had been a horribly awkward conversation and Kakashi wants to erase it from his memory immediately. Tsunade is an extraordinary shinobi, but it’s  _ not  _ because of her subtlety. She had made it loud and clear through a rant consisting of terms such as “mental health” and “extreme trauma” and “healthy relationships” and “take a damn  _ break” _ . Her voice had seemed so booming that he was surprised the whole village hadn’t heard, honestly. 

(Tiger definitely heard though. He hadn’t lost his emotionless body language throughout the entire conversation, the ANBU being far too trained to visibly express he was even hearing the conversation while he stood guard on the Hokage. Still, Kakashi  _ knows  _ Tiger. He can just  _ tell  _ he’s grinning widely underneath his mask.)

(At least he’s one of the incredibly few ANBU that  _ isn’t  _ a horrible gossip. He’ll hold it over Kakashi forever, but at least Yūgao will never hear of it. He can live with that.)

“Oh,” Tenzō says, his posture relaxing but that skeptical and suspicious look not leaving his face. “That’s…” He falters for a moment, and Kakashi has been a shinobi long enough to tell when someone’s holding back information. However, he’s also known Tenzō long enough to know when he should push and when he should wait. Take that, Kurenai. He does know more social tact.

Besides, no matter how amusing it would be to wheedle out of his kouhai what’s giving him that odd look on his face, he’s opting to take the opportunity to continue while Tenzō is too preoccupied with his thoughts to ask too many questions that Kakashi does not want to answer. 

“So we have a hotel in Yugakure all set up and everything. We’ll leave tomorrow at about nine. See you at the front gate. Pack accordingly. Bye.” Nailed it. He said everything he needs to and now all he needs to is get away cleanly-

“If you make me wait more than half an hour, I’m going to make you socialize with tourists for a day!” Tenzō’s voice calls out behind him, Kakashi’s rushed words having snapped him out of his daze. Kakashi doesn’t stop in his flight and he can just  _ sense  _ the other shinobi’s exasperated sigh behind him.

He knows Tenzō won’t actually follow through with that threat - he would loathe talking to tourists as much as Kakashi would. He may pretend to be a good influence on Kakashi, but they both know that their introversion is a shared trait between them. Either way, though, he’ll probably not leave him waiting too much more than the time he’s been given to be late. He may not make Kakashi endure the unique form of torture that is making  _ small talk  _ with  _ strangers _ , but he’ll probably figure out something similarly painful that will make him wish for actual torture.

Overall, though, he counts this as a successful interaction. He totally has healthy relationships down. Tsunade must be so stressed out with everything that she’s seeing things that don’t exist.

Not that he’ll tell her that. He’s had too many near-death experiences recently, thank you very much. Besides, his precious students will probably get overdramatic about his event and start another war or something. They’re all out somewhere - Kakashi doesn’t know, he didn’t ask - travelling together. He knows they’ll be back in time to see him take the hat, though. Naruto and Sakura wouldn’t let them miss it for the world and they’ll probably easily be able to persuade Sai to their side. 

He winces to himself as he thinks about the shared chaos the four of them  _ getting along  _ will reign onto Konohagakure.

Maybe he does need this vacation. It might be the last time he sees peace before they come back.

* * *

Kakashi is an idiot.

He should have  _ known  _ that all his students needed was for him to merely  _ think of them in passing  _ and they’d just. Appear. Out of  _ nowhere.  _ Absolutely uninvited.

Why. What did he do to deserve this.

“Kakashi-sensei! Yamato-taicho!” Naruto’s typical cheerful voice sounds loud in his ears despite the distance between the pair and the group of four. Sasuke is trapped between Naruto and Sakura, each of his teammates holding an arm captive. Which is odd because last he heard, Sasuke was being very dramatic about not replacing his arm with a prosthetic. Oh well, one of the others must have persuaded him otherwise. Or hit him around more. Or dared him not to so he would just to be contrary. It really could have been any of the above.

Sakura is also holding Sai prisoner, the pale boy’s arm stuck in the pink-haired girl’s ironclad grip. He’s stumbling along just a step behind her, and - despite the large amount of frustration filling him due to the fact he knows this is the end of any peace he was going to get - he’d be lying if he said his heart didn’t warm a little at the sight. He could remember Sai’s looks the days while Team Seven were preparing to leave. How he lingered at the edge of every conversation, and excused himself very neatly after a short time. 

He hadn’t known what to do, and had confided in Tenzō one night. The man had listened to his worries, hearing him out with such emotion on his face that always makes his heart hurt at the reminder of when it wasn’t always there. At the thought of Kinoe, and everything that boy was and almost continued to be.

( _ Kami, _ he’s so grateful for Tenzō - everything that man is and was and will be.)

Tenzō had heard out his concerns, having been holding a lot of them himself silently. They bounced ideas back in forth, their voices the only thing breaking through the quiet of the night.

They eventually decided on telling Naruto that Sai was feeling out of place.

(It had worked beautifully.)

After all the greetings - Sakura’s happy welcome, Sasuke’s eloquent grunts, Sai’s polite memorized words that have lost some of their stiffness - Sakura launches into an explanation of why, exactly, his precious no-longer-little students are in Yugakure. 

“We got back to Konoha early,” She says, “We couldn’t find either of you, but luckily an ANBU told us you would be here for the week.”

“He was really cool! He had this tiger mask and his voice was super deep.” Naruto chimes in, a grin on his face.

Of course it was Tiger. Kakashi shouldn’t be surprised. He should have known he’d become a gossip and a brat after Kakashi left ANBU. He probably told Yūgao as well. 

Well, at least they probably wouldn’t be here for the week.

* * *

They rented the hotel rooms on either side of Kakashi and Tenzō. They were trying to be secretive about it, but they could  _ hear  _ Naruto and Sasuke yelling at each other in the room to their left, Sai’s quieter voice nudging them on a bit. It continued to the point where Tenzō’s eyebrow was twitching and Kakashi was about to bet that he was going to storm over there and make them shut up.

Thankfully, the room to their right suddenly had the door open and slam shut loudly and several stomping footsteps passed by the front of their room to the source of the noise.

The only thing they could hear after that was Sakura’s shouts.

Kakashi hopes that maybe, at the very least, they’ll find activities to occupy themselves rather than bothering their poor, long-suffering teachers.

* * *

Kakashi is currently sitting in an onsen next to Tenzō. Which is really nice.

Kakashi is also currently sitting in an onsen across from Naruto, Sasuke, and Sai. Which is not so nice.

In the middle of a peaceful silence that spawned out of Tenzō giving Naruto and Sasuke that  _ look  _ that no mortal man - not even his ridiculously-strong-but-somehow-still-technically-genin students - can last under, Sai gets a contemplative look on his face that suddenly makes Kakashi regret everything in his life.

“Are you both here on your honeymoon?”

Kakashi doesn’t know why he deludes himself that things will go smoothly for once in his life.

* * *

It is that night that Kakashi guesses it’s now time to get creative in order to preserve any vacation he was planning to have.

* * *

“I don’t like the fact that this is working.” Tenzō says, and Kakashi has to agree with him.

They had to get creative, considering the fact that Sasuke has the most powerful dōjutsu known to shinobi and Naruto had pretty insane sensing skills when he was in sage mode. 

Tenzō’s able to procure this….thing. It’s clunky and black and makes a large amount of noise when Tenzō hits it a certain way. He shrugs when Kakashi asks how it works and tells him that he picked it up at some civilian shop. It’s called a “boombox” or something. Tenzō’s not exactly sure, but it certainly serves as a distraction well enough. They put it in their hotel room and lock the door and turn it up so loud that their students (who are doubtlessly listening at the door, Kakashi heard Naruto sneeze and Sai “It’s okay” at a volume just above a whisper. Not quite right, but he’s getting there) aren’t able to hear anything else.

That’s when they jump out the window. It’s really not that far of a drop. 

They know the boombox-or-whatever-it’s-called won’t stall the four of them forever. Thankfully, for all the intelligence and over-the-top abilities the students of Team Seven had, they were still (or, well, three out of four of them were) the same kids Kakashi fooled with a wig and something to cover up the scar on his eye.

This time, it seems like all they need is civilian clothes, a bit of makeup Kakashi bought from a female store owner who was far too chatty, and for them to remove their more distinctive pieces of their outfits. It’s not the first time Kakashi’s seen Tenzō without his happuri or Tenzō seeing Kakashi without his mask, of course, but it's still nice. Kakashi almost has a small piece of his mind considering thanking the brats for giving him this rare opportunity. 

(Almost.)

“It is, though.” Kakashi says quietly. “Working, that is.”

Tenzō sighs. “I despair for the future of Konohagakure when Naruto is Hokage.”

Something preens inside of him at the fact that it’s a  _ when  _ in a conversation of his loudest student achieving his dreams, rather than an  _ if  _ or anything else of the sort. Not that he’d admit it. He hasn’t gone soft.

(Well,  _ that  _ soft.)

(Shut up.)

* * *

Kakashi is actually mentally thanking Tsunade right now, which is something he’d never thought he’d do.

But, really, he’s having a genuinely good time.

They’ve successfully evaded the kids-to-Kakashi-even-if-they’ve-saved-the-world-Tenzō, at least for the time being. Long enough to escape to a field a bit past the fringes of the town they’re staying at. The sun is nice and warm against Kakashi’s skin, and for the first time in a long time he doesn’t have to worry about getting an awkward tan line or anything. 

Not that anyone has ever seen it when he does, but he still knows it’s  _ there  _ and that typically bothers him like an itch that can’t be scratched.

Tenzō sitting on the ground cross-legged, and Kakashi’s half-laying on his lap with his upper body in a way that’s so comfortable Kakashi forgets his life is an absolute mess of trauma and questionable decisions. One of his hands is stroking through Kakashi’s hair and the other is repeatedly summoning little flowers that either end up tucked into odd places in Kakashi’s outfit, in his hair, or just scattered around them to blossom and grow.

Kakashi has  _ not  _ gone soft. Really.

“You should summon more of those yellow ones.” He murmurs.

“Buttercups,” Tenzō supplies the name easily, and Kakashi doesn’t know when he found the time to memorize so many plant names. He has always been a star with the Yamanaka clan, though, with their flower shop flourishing every time he enters. “And are you sure? Their scent can be a bit much, and you’re not wearing your mask.”

Kakashi absolutely does not feel extremely happy on the inside that Tenzō remembered his extremely sensitive sense of smell. 

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll be okay.” He promises, smiling up at the brown-haired shinobi. He should get Tenzō out of his happuri more often. He looks really good. “Besides, they’re your favorite, aren’t they?”

Tenzō blushes. “Maybe.”

Kakashi grins, wide and open. “C’mon, my precious kouhai. What kind of senpai would I be if I didn’t know your favorite flower?”

Tenzō gives him a look. “Oh, yes,  _ senpai.  _ Of course, that’s why you know my favorite flower. How could I forget.”

He smiles wider. “Exactly.”

Tenzō, of course, does grow more buttercups. He actually grows so many that when they leave the field looks like its glittering gold. It’s beautiful. Perfect. Romantic.

He even annoys Tenzō so much that the man dumps him in the nearby river.

“So your nose doesn’t get too overwhelmed!” The brat excuses his behavior to a sopping Kakashi.

“Yah! I can still smell underwater, you know!”

“Really?” Tenzō says with mock surprise, like he didn’t already know. Before Kakashi knows it, a thin branch is wrapped around his ankles and tugging him back under.

He yelps and splutters before he resurfaces once more. 

“What did it smell like,  _ senpai?”  _ Tenzō asks, his voice dripping with innocence.

Kakashi sniffles before he sneezes. It’s a lot nicer without the mask on. 

“I got water in my nose.” He whines.

“And what does that smell like?”

“That’s it, you  _ brat-” _

* * *

It’s not the calmest or quietest vacation ever.

But Kakashi, honestly, wouldn’t have had it any other way.

* * *

_ “The buttercup symbolizes childishness, humility, and neatness.” _

_ “...They have one of those more than the other two.” _

**Author's Note:**

> i started it off thinking "maybe this'll be platonic" and then it ended with tenzo playing with kakashi's hair in a field of flowers. sorry not sorry.


End file.
